When a customer in the United States calls a bank or a phone company about a problem, the person who answers may work in Bengaluru or Hyderabad, for a firm such as Concentrix or Sutherland.
The firms in this Company Tier don't mainly sell software. They sell the running of other companies' work:
BPO, business process outsourcinganswering customers, processing transactions, and running back-office work such as billing and claims
KPO, knowledge process outsourcingwork that needs more specialist knowledge, such as analytics, research, accounting, legal work and translation
Genpact, WNS, EXL, Sutherland, Concentrix, TELUS Digital, TTEC, Firstsource and Movate are among the best-known names. Most of the people in these firms are not software engineers. But every large outsourcer now runs on software, and it employs engineers to build and automate it.
This is the one Company Tier where software engineering is not the main work. It sits in this collection because the business model is the same as an IT services firm's: a client hands over work it would rather not do itself, and pays a firm to do it. What is handed over is a process, not a software project.
BPO firms run a process, such as customer contact, technical support or back-office transactions. KPO firms do work that needs specialist knowledge, from analytics and accounting to insurance operations, healthcare billing, legal work and translation.
Every firm named here has posted software engineering jobs in India.
What these firms sell, and to whom
They sell the running of a process, to an agreed standard, at a lower cost than the client could manage itself. A bank, an insurer, a hospital group or a technology company hands over a process, such as customer support, claims processing or month-end accounting. The firm staffs it, runs it, and is paid per transaction, per hour or per outcome, measured against targets such as how quickly calls are answered or how accurately claims are processed.
A client hands over a process, such as customer support, claims or month-end accounting, and the firm staffs it and runs it to an agreed standard at a lower cost. The client pays per transaction, per hour or per outcome, measured against targets such as how quickly calls are answered.
The clients are large companies in every industry, above all American and British ones: banks and insurers, healthcare companies, telecom operators, travel firms, technology companies, and governments.
Digital operations and CX outsourcing
CX means customer experience: every contact a customer has with a company, by phone, chat, email or social media. CX outsourcers run those contacts for their clients, from large contact centres in India and around the world. Digital operations is the back-office work behind them, such as processing orders, payments and account changes.
Sutherlandruns business processes and customer support for its clients.
Concentrixis a large customer-experience and contact-centre company.
TELUS Digitalpart of the Canadian telecom company TELUS, runs customer-experience and digital services. Its data arm is also covered in Company Tier 8. (More on it in Company Tier 8, Specialist firms built around one skill, in the services-world collection.)
Movateruns customer and technical support for technology companies.
TTEC, ResultsCX and HGSthe Hinduja group's customer-experience company, run customer contact for their clients.
Firstsourcean Indian firm, runs business processes and customer support.
IGT Solutionsruns customer support and technology work for travel companies.
Conduentruns transaction-heavy back-office work, such as processing payments and forms.
TaskUsruns customer experience and content moderation, checking what people post online.
Wing Assistantsupplies virtual assistants, people who do office tasks remotely for a client.
Servion Global Solutionsbuilds and runs the technology behind contact centres.
Digitide, Call Quest Solution and Transact Global BPOrun customer contact and back-office operations.
The software that contact centres run on is sold by product companies. (More on it in Market Segment 15.1, Contact centre software (CCaaS), in Industry Vertical 15, Customer service and CX, in the product-companies collection.)
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Knowledge-process work
KPO is outsourcing that needs specialist knowledge. The work is analysis and judgement, not only following a process.
Analytics and researchEXL runs operations and analytics for insurers and banks. WNS and Genpact are large process and analytics outsourcers. Genpact began as General Electric's back office in India. SG Analytics does research and analytics. eClerx, which also appears as Eclerx Services Ltd, manages data and processes for its clients. TresVista provides analysts to support investment firms.
Finance and accountingFinacPlus and QX Global Group run accounting work for clients.
Insurance operationsXceedance and ReSource Pro run back-office work for insurers. Xceedance also builds software for them.
Healthcare billingLogixHealth, Ensemble Health Partners and Credence Global Solutions handle the billing, medical coding and collections of American hospitals and doctors. This is called the revenue cycle. (More on it in Market Segment 23.1, Revenue cycle management (RCM) software, in Industry Vertical 23, Health insurance and billing, in the product-companies collection.)
Legal and complianceElevate handles legal work for law firms and companies. Provana handles legal work and debt collections. AML RightSource runs anti-money-laundering checks for banks, checking that money is not coming from crime.
Language and localisationTransPerfect and Welocalize translate and adapt content for other countries, which is called localisation. Keywords Studios does the same for video games, and also helps develop them.
Government servicesMaximus runs public programmes for the United States and other governments.
The engineering inside them
Software engineers in these firms work on the operation itself, not on a client's product. They build:
automationsoftware that does repetitive process steps, such as reading a form or updating a record, often with RPA, robotic process automation, where software copies the clicks a person would make (More on RPA in Market Segment 10.3, RPA, process mining and low-code platforms, in Industry Vertical 10, ERP and business automation, in the product-companies collection.)
platformsthe systems the operation runs on, such as case-management and workflow tools, and the contact-centre technology
data teamsthe analytics that measure the operation, and increasingly the AI models that run parts of it
A few firms here mix IT services with process work: Visionet Systems, and Datamatics, which also appears as Datamatics Technologies.
This is where the name does not tell you the job most sharply. At the same firm, most people run a process, and a smaller number of engineers build the software behind it.
Inside one firm, most people run the process for the client, and a smaller number of engineers build the software behind it: the automation, the platforms the operation runs on, and the data teams that measure it.
The firms
Customer experience and digital operations
- Sutherland
- Concentrix
- TELUS Digital
- Movate
- TTEC
- ResultsCX
- HGS
- Firstsource
- IGT Solutions
- Conduent
- TaskUs
- Wing Assistant
- Servion Global Solutions
- Digitide
- Call Quest Solution
- Transact Global BPO
Knowledge-process work
- EXL
- WNS
- Genpact
- SG Analytics
- eClerx, which appears under two names, eClerx and Eclerx Services Ltd
- TresVista
- FinacPlus
- QX Global Group
- Xceedance
- ReSource Pro
- LogixHealth
- Ensemble Health Partners
- Credence Global Solutions
- Elevate
- Provana
- AML RightSource
- TransPerfect
- Welocalize
- Keywords Studios
- Maximus
IT services and process work mixed
- Visionet Systems
- Datamatics, which appears under two names, Datamatics and Datamatics Technologies
The operation AI replaces first.
Much of what these firms sell is the kind of work AI models now do: answering routine questions, reading forms, checking documents, coding medical bills, and translating text. AI reaches this work before almost any other in the services world. The firms are responding by selling AI to their clients: running operations where AI handles the routine cases and people handle the rest. That makes the engineers who build the automation and the AI models the fastest-growing part of these firms, while the number of people running processes by hand is expected to fall.
That is the BPO and KPO firm: firms that run other companies' processes, from customer contact to accounting and analytics, with engineers building the software and automation behind the operation.